True Beauty
by Flame-Kunoichi
Summary: a little ino x choji oneshot... ino reflects on how they came to be in wake of sasukes betrayal of Konoha.


i just thought of the quote in the end while i was in the shower, and i had to elaborate, cuz i love the idea of ino/choji after the chapter of 'too sexy for a shirt" which is great, you should go read it! ANYWAY! its just angsty/romance/no real fluff... hahahhaa... i like it alot, i think its beautiful...

its reeeeaaaaallly wierd, in terms of where it is in teh story... it begins in the forrest of death (2nd exam) and lots of spoilers for after that, but they're so muddled in my AU that it becomes hard to tell... you can just take it all as an AU and leave it at that, and it'll all be good... I LOVE YOU ALL!

btw, ino's REALLY ooc for her normal giggly/preppy/slut look... i dont usually like her much... also, its got alot of sasuke bashing... he anoys me.. okay.. the acutal story... sorry for taking so long

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(sigh) 

she lay back on the fluffy pillows, the sunlight streaming through the windows and thought...

it wasnt somehting she had done in the past, but was starting to do more and more, now that she was married to him

him

she loved him, in a deep and beautiful way, and it was in no way anything like the stupid teenage crush on that bastard sasuke

the definite point when she stopped loving him wasthe day they came home, without him, with a body bag and two strechers

but now she realized it had been fading gradually, ever since the forrest of death incident

after she and her team had protected him, naruto, that kid with wierd eyebrows, and sakura from those crazy sound ninjas, he just got up and kicked their asses, no problem.

she had seen it in his eyes, the bloodlust, the hunger for power, the sheer danger.

as the exam went on, he kept acting stranger and stranger, his disapearence after his battle in the pre-lims, and is almost total absense in the final test, his hunting gaara down after the battle was over

later, his leaving

he just left. picked up and went. sakura tried to stop him, but he'd pushed her away. left her sobbing. cold, without emotion

but she couldnt forget him, and neither could anyone else. thats why they went after him. they didnt even get him back, and with so many casualties too...

after she heard about what those powerful creeps did, she snapped. she couldnt understand why he'd want to be with people like that. that would take lives, enemy lives, strangers lives, innocent lives...

friends lives...

just to have a bit of power.

choji and neji had been healed, of course, after much help from the new hokage. without her, they wouldnt have had a chance. thats why she was hokage

but more that that, no not just more, on a completely different scale, was sasuke. she lapsed into dispair eventually, after she found out. sakura too, for that matter, but it had hit her especially hard.

sakura still blamed herself for letting him leave, and thought that if she had fought harder, to keep him there, naruto would still be alive.

Ino couldnt believe it when she heard. she just couldnt accept that the sexy loner kid she'd been crushing on FOR-EH-VER had gone and killed him. his "closest friend" why?

power

power corrupted him, even before he had it. his lust for it couldnt be quenched, his desire for revenge against his stupid big brother

but the past is the past... right?

not to him. it was his future BECAUSE it was his past. and he couldnt escape escape his fate

but naruto had proven that fate wasnt concrete. with neji, he had given him a whole new look on life.

but some people cant be helped

ino was sure that naruto had tried, up until the end, when he was bleeding and dying, to convince sasuke to come back, but with naruto's death, came the power that he wanted so badly. so he killed him. and it was all over. nothing left to do but slink off to that creepy snake guy.

she'd sat for weeks. obsessing and depressed. she wouldnt eat, she wouldnt move, just flop over and cry. untilll there were no more tears. then pure dispair. as thick and deep as the village hidden in the marsh

she could have died. would have too, but she just couldnt summon the energy to hold the knife

crushed, thats all there was. the love of her life. beautiful and perfect in every way...

but with a rtten, festering soul that yearned to be greater, more powerful.

she coudnt get over it. the loss of all her feelings, her emotions wandered around, with no one to cling to hopelessly anymore. her soul was empty

but...

one day, she was pulled from her dispair. she felt a few crumbs land on her face, and she brushed them away, pulling the covers over her face. but the crunching didnt stop. it just stayed with her, keeping her in reality, not letting the nightmares in.

the next morning the crunching was back, and she finally realized who it was. he must have just gotten out of the hospital.

choji.

he'd liked her forever, watching her love sasuke from afar, never saying anything.

she'd known, of course, but had never given him a second thought...

oh how shallow she'd been...

when he came back on a strecher, her heart had lurched. she'd sat by him for the first few days, until the news of sasuke finally set in...

and now, he was with her...

the crunch of the chips and crinkle of the bags was soothing, and she felt comforted by this familiar sound.

he sat with her for 3 days.

finally, she managed to speak to him, in a low hoarse voice, so different from her normal high giggly one. they'd talked and talked. they shared their feelings, and she felt closer to him in a deep way, that she'd never felt before.

she slept now, free of nightmares, full of dreams... dreams of food

after a while, he told her that when he slumped against the tree, after the battle, ready to die, all he could think of was her, and how much he'd miss her, and would she be proud that he'd defeated one of the sound creeps.

he said he loved her and always had

ino had smiled as she realized she loved him too, and had told him so.

they'd been together ever since...

She smiled as she streched and yawned, and looked over at him, asleep.

the sheets rose and fell with his breathing, and as she looked at him, she realized that he was beautiful. not in even remotely the ordinary way, but in a way so strange and lovely it defied words. he shone thru the layer of fat, and became perfect.

perfect

well, to her at least...

still smiling, she got up, and as she walked away, thought

"Choji, Sasuke may have showed me what beauty _was_, but you showed me what it _could be_."

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like i said, random fic, inspired by the quote at the end, i just thought of it, and the fic poped out! how cool! anyway, it just a little oneshot... whoo!


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